Cochin Jews - Traditions and Way of Life

Traditions and Way of Life

The 12th century Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela wrote about the Malabari coast of Kerala: "The inhabitants are all black, and the Jews also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha." Maimonides (1135–1204), the preeminent Jewish philosopher of his day, wrote, "Only lately some well-to-do men came forward and purchased three copies of my code which they distributed through messengers.... Thus the horizon of these Jews was widened and the religious life in all communities as far as India revived." (The Baghdadi Jews came to India in the 18th century, and it was only then that the Bene Israel Jews of India were "discovered" and taught mainstream Judaism by the Cochinis and Baghdadis, so Maimonides must be referring to the Cochini Jews.)

Further support for the Mishneh Torah circulating in India comes in the form of a letter sent from Safed, Israel to Italy in 1535. In it David del Rossi claimed that a Jewish merchant from Tripoli had told him the India town of Shingly (Cranganore) had a large Jewish population who dabbled in yearly pepper trade with the Portuguese. As far as their religious life, he wrote they: "only recognize the Code of Maimonides and possessed no other authority or Traditional law." According to Katz, Rabbi Nissim of Gerona (the Ran) visited the Cochini Jews, and they preserve in their song books the poem he wrote about them. In the Kadavumbagham synagogue, there was a yeshiva (school) for both "children's education and adult study of Torah and Mishnah."

The early twentieth century Jewish Encyclopedia states, "Though they neither eat nor drink together, nor intermarry, the Black and the White Jews of Cochin have almost the same social and religious customs. They hold the same doctrines, use the same ritual (Sephardic), observe the same feasts and fasts, dress alike, and have adopted the same language Malayalam. ... The two classes are equally strict in religious observances," and prominently featured is a black Cochin Jew with his entire head shaved, save for his very prominent payot. According to Chemana, the Jews of Cochin "coalesced around the religious fundamentals: devotion and strict obedience to Biblical Judaism and to the Jewish customs and traditions ... Hebrew, taught through the Torah texts by rabbis and teachers who came especially from Yemen...".

It is notable that the Jews of Cochin did not adhere to the Talmudic prohibition against public singing by women (kol isha), and therefore have always had a rich tradition of Jewish prayers and narrative songs performed by women in Judeo-Malayalam. (However, this Talmudic prohibition is not absolute; there are in fact traditional Orthodox interpretations that sanction certain kinds of singing performances by women before men, and other historical Jewish communities besides the Cochini one relied on this lenient interpretation.)

Although Jewish law only proscribes a waiting period of a few hours between meat and milk, Benedicta Pereira, a Paradesi Jew, writes, "Mostly the older people prohibited the use of milk and meat the same day in the house and to scare the young Jew's so as not to be inspired by the culture there were stories of bad Omens for those who dare to think even of milk and meat together."